Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Peachy Keen

The first thing that caught our interest was the sandy ground--sand in the middle of the state! A bit further up the road is the Carolina Sandhills Refuge, and, during a glacial period in the history of the earth, these sandhills were the shoreline of the ocean. In the following clip, I was explaining to Patty about the sand, and you can see Pamela listening to our conversation and scooting her feet in the sand. I wanted to capture more of Pamela's orienting to people, so I filmed some of our explorations.

The Orchard

Yummy Peach in the Making

In front of the orchard are the antique museum, restaurant, and country store. Patty bought some delicious, primo peaches, while I purchased blackberries and stoneground grits. Javier had never tried grits--not only did he enjoy them the next day, he invented a Latin variation: banana grits! The store did not thrill Pamela, so she sat on a rocking chair in the screened porch and rocked the babies. Then, we ate lunch and headed to the peach packing plant.

The Packing PlantThe Flying Boxes

In spite of the noise, Pamela did very nicely orienting to me as we explored the assembly line factory. She enjoyed watching the boxes fly along the tracks.

Patty sat down with Pamela, and they managed to have a conversation! You cannot hear what they are saying, but I love the nonverbals here! Pamela could not have managed this kind of interaction in such a challenging setting when Patty visited us in April 2007. This is my favorite clip of the day:

5 comments:

Following Poohder's lead here ... isn't it wonderful to see how all your work with Pamela over the past year has borne "fruit?" You guys have made incredible progress on this journey. Thanks for sharing it! And it looks like you had a great day.

LOL! Born fruit . . . more importantly, it has born fruit in me! I am more patient with the struggles Pamela faces, more joyful about her growth, more kind and gentle when she is frustrated, and more self-controlled when I am frustrated because I know we are on a slow, but steady journey.

I like the fact that this is not a "fix Pamela" mentality because all of us are growing in how we think and interact.

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